


Felicitations

by misura



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "The High One sends you his felicitations on the birth of your daughter," Deth said.





	Felicitations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/gifts).



"The High One sends you his felicitations on the birth of your daughter," Deth said.

He had looked nervous, for a brief moment, upon entering her rooms, as if afraid of what he might find - as if he would not have been told, had she or the babe been even the least unwell.

Then he had approached, and seen her, and he had looked relieved before he had become the High One's harpist, and given her the High One's message.

"I am pleased to receive the High One's felicitations." She smiled, as her guard had smiled upon being told she would receive her guest in a place of her own choosing, in private, or at least in a place where she might be the Morgol of Herun and El both, as Deth might be the High One's harpist and himself.

Deth's mask slipped. "You could have sent for me," he said. "Circumstances allowing, I would have come."

_I know._ "The beginning required your presence. The ending, I felt capable of handling without you."

Deth glanced at the crib, where the babe slept. "She will be your land-heir."

"Yes. I have named her Lyraluthuin." Coming from the High One, he would know that already.

Deth nodded, either in agreement to her thought or in confirmation of some thought of his own.

Her sight had shown his approach days ago. She had watched him harp for the trees, the stars, the land itself. She had not sensed the High One, nor did she know if she would, if her sight would extend so far, to sense a presence all the way to Erlenstar Mountain, even one as powerful as the High One.

"Deth," she said. He had come to her bed with open eyes, knowing what she might offer him and what must be kept from him. "Tell me what you feel."

He answered her, not with words, but with a song, as she had known he would. There was joy in it, though, and in his eyes as he looked at her, much later that night, after he had done harping, and so it would be years before she would remember that night, and realize what had worried at his heels all the way to Herun, what Lyra might have been, might have become, given time and suffering, and a birth-gift of three stars to mark her.


End file.
